Let’s build a giant room-sized theremin with 16 antennas!
We would like to invite the tag-team of artist/engineers David Beaulieu and Christian Pelletier to this year’s Pop Montreal International Music Festival (September 30 - October 4) and see them build a Theremin room in our special Art Pop and POP Symposium headquarters.
The duo was last seen breaking musical boundaries with their loud-speaker suits worn by Patrick Watson and his musicians at this year’s Festival de Jazz de Montréal.
The installation of massive proportions we want them to build will invite festival-goers to participate (alone, or in groups!) in the creation of on-site, mind-blowing, improvised music as they interact in a room with 16 antennas suspended above and around them. As they are activated, the antennas trigger psychedelic sounds that are bound to excite and solicit interest from all sorts of human beings
It’s gonna be spontaneous, it’s gonna be an immediate and visceral experience, it’s gonna be communally created art instantly diffused, IT’S GONNA BE SO COOL! We’re asking all lovers of theremins, lovers of art, lovers of interactive experiences, lovers of electricity, lovers of music and lovers of the world everywhere to help us make this project happen. Your money will be used to pay for David & Christian’s hard work and the equipment they will need to make this happen.
Check out our kickstarter page, where you’ll see all the amazing REWARDS we’re offering to people that back this project. Among those, you’ll find:
- a limited edition DVD of animations made by local animators
- a DIY theremin kit
- a hand silk-screened limited edition t-shirt with a theremin on it
- an mp3 of an exclusive track from Gentleman Reg or Dishwasher
- a FULL PAGE photo of you in the Pop Montreal segment program
- a VIP Festival Pass to the Pop Montreal International Music Festival
- a personal festival friend and a cozy bed to sleep in
- a musical about you and 3 of your friends, written and performed by us. we will tape it in Montreal in front of a live audience, and send it to you.
- a custom-made Loudspeaker Suit built by Beaulieu and Pelletier
creature of the day breaks down creatures in the night
The creature of the day being myself, as it IS 3pm-ish, and so I wouldn’t be considered a creature in the night currently. Rational aside, I still managed to go to the second half of the animation festival Creatures in the Night last night, which was the open call-for-submissions part of the evening.
I have to admit that I was pretty blown away especially because I honestly find animation a medium with SUCH potential that it often has folks doing pretty annoying stuff. Like performance art, minus the potential. No, no, I’m kidding, I actually think they have a lot in common. Ha ha. Yeah…
One of the night’s crowd pleasures as far as I could tell was this animation from Christophe Jordache entitled, Enola Gay: (Sorry about the shoddy and short quality of this little morcel)
I have been forced, at various times or others, to use toilet paper to draw on in lieu of having anything else that will remotely function as paper, and the results have often been interesting, but it’s a hard medium to tackle. That Jordache drew on it for this entire animation (it was 2 minutes long in duration in total) is pretty amazing, and that his movements are as interesting and convincing as they are is quite unbelievable.
There were other works of greatness as well: Rickie Lea Owens had several very short, irreverant and fun pieces. Joshua Bonnetta’s Parting was an absolutely gorgeous 2 minutes of what seemed like rotoscoped dancers with a haunting soundtrack. Pretty hard to describe unless you see it, which I did, but I was mesmerized in a way that made trying to document it all at the same time quite difficult.
Finally, Karl Lemieux ended the night with an 8 minute 16mm film entitled, Moveuvement de Lumiere/Motion of Light. It looked to me like what might happen if Vic Muniz did a stop motion animation with his chocolate sauce instead of painting the Mona Lisa. Lemieux, who co-founded the film collective Double Negative, is clearly in his element with this intensely meditative and process-based work that is rooted in the experimental.
The funny thing is, I usually hate long animations (and 8 minutes is long for this kind of a thing) and I don’t often like experiemental filmmaking. I was absolutely BLOWN away by this piece however. You should truly try to get your hands on a copy of the film. I kindof couldn’t believe it. My jaw was hanging. I was aghast. For a moment, I was nothing more than a little beastie, scouraging for food and water. I was a Creature In the Night.
Thanks to Elizabeth Belliveau and articule for putting on such an amazing event.
Filed under animation, events, experimental film, video | Tags: articule, Christophe Jordache, creatures in the night, Double Negative, elizabeth belliveau, Josh Bonnetta, Karl Lemieux, Rickie Lea Owens | Comment (0)Creatures in the Night - Update
Attention everyone, the Creatures in the Night screening of animation films (the one I mentionned previously, i.e. the one happening tonight) will take place at Blue Sky Doors at 9pm, at 5403B St. Laurent. Enter the parking lot and find the door with blue lights. The entrance is free.
And just to make this post worthier, here’s Walk for Walk by Amy Lockhart, who will be screening some work tonight (not necessarily/probably not this one). If you’re into her work as much as I am, make sure you don’t miss her talk tomorrow (Sunday, 3pm at articule, 262 Fairmount O). And go to her show, before it ends tomorrow night too.
Filed under animation, events, experimental film | Tags: Amy Lockheart, articule, Blue Sky Doors, La Centrale | Comment (0)Tadanori Yokoo Tripendicularness
I’ll just leave this here…
Filed under animation, artists, experimental film, out-of-town | Tags: Tadanori Yokoo | Comment (1)Kenneth Anger
Spring’s here, so let me tell you about Kenneth Anger, because he really gets me going, if you know what I mean. I just realized his P.S.1 exhibition opened a while ago in New York City -and thankfully the show’s up until September 14, so it’s an extra-fitting time to write about him. According to its press release, this exhibition is “the first major survey of the filmmaker’s body of work at a U.S. museum in over a decade.” Emergency to go to NYC, much?
Anger has been producing dazzlingly seductive and abstruse films since the forties. His aesthetic of extravagant glamour and grandiose occult is remarkable, as is his ability to gracefully walk the fine line between camp and decadent romanticism. I have especially fond feelings for Scorpio Rising, which I find exemplifies best Anger’s talent at translating pop culture into mythology (and vice versa). Revolving around desirable and untameable Gods of Death (Dean, Brando and sexy queer bikers) and their evocative Thing that Goes (sparkly glammed-up motorcycles), Anger’s mythopoeic narrative challenges notions of sin and desire with its rebellious heroes that piss on Adolf Hitler and fuck Jesus Christ to the sound of catchy 50’s songs.
In Lucifer Rising or Rabbit’s Moon for example, Anger shows his more spiritualistic tendencies with fantasy-based universes where rituals are more “magic” and less metaphorical. The inspiring and elaborate mise en scène featured in these films serves dramatic and subversive otherworldly subject matters. Fun fact of the day, the soundtrack of Lucifer Rising by Bobby Beausoleil is the only movie soundtrack in history recorded inside a prison. (Thanks wikipedia).
Kenneth Anger’s persona and personal history, as well as his two best-selling Hollywood Babylon books (look for the gorgeous hard-copy edition at the Webster Library), all rely on alluring mythicalness rooted in decadence, drama and insurgence. His fascination with the flipside of the glamour coin, where the glorious falls deep down into the morbid pits of excess and perversion, definitely plays out in his films. Saturated by the turmoil of life, sex and death, his art is striking and outlandish, a histrionic and occult fantasy fuelled by rumours and rituals. Anger’s body and richness of work is larger than life, which is why I urge you to head to the P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center before the exhibition is over. And make sure you don’t forget to take a look at the other artists showcased in the building, as there is nothing but quality art in there.
Anger’s iconic work is also available on dvd, thanks to Fantoma Films who recently commercially released two compilations of HD transfered Anger films, complete with bonuses, audio commentaries and lovely booklets. As Mondo Digital puts it after an insightful review: “easily one of the most essential DVD releases of this or any other year.” Hopefully, newer films like Mouse Heaven (2005), Elliott’s Suicide (2007), Ich Will! (2008), I’ll Be Watching You (2007) or Foreplay (2008) will soon be released in a third volume.
Filed under art shows, artists, events, experimental film, out-of-town, profiles | Tags: Kenneth Anger, New York City, P.S.1, queer | Comment (1)
